Dennis Lehane

October 12, 2015

DreamWorks has nabbed another hot literary title from one of the industry’s favorite authors.

The studio has acquired the future rights to Dennis Lehane’s next novel “Since We Fell,” sources tell Variety, after a heated bidding war this past summer that saw several studios vying for the rights to a proposal.

Ecco Press, which is a division of Harper Collins, is publishing the book, due out next fall as Lehane is still writing. Lehane will adapt the screenplay for the studio after he is finished with the novel.

Plot details are being kept under wraps, but one insider describes it s a Hitchcockian thriller set in Boston. Sources say the new book by Lehane, best known for his New England-based crime dramas like “Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone” and “Shutter Island,” will be unlike anything he has written to date.

Lehane’s books have long garnered critical acclaim and commercial success, and the author has recently taken to adapting his own novels, the first being Fox Searchlight’s crime drama “The Drop,” starring Tom Hardy. Lehane has since begun writing scripts not based on his own work, such as the upcoming Travis McGee pic “The Deep Blue Good-By” and the remake of “The Prophet” for Neal Moritz.

Lehane’s next novel to be adapted into a feature is “Live By Night,” which Ben Affleck has made his next directing gig following his Oscar-winning pic “Argo.” Lehane will produce along with Leo DiCaprio’s Appian Way and Affleck’s Pearl Street Pictures. He is also developing a TV show based on his best-selling novel “Shutter Island” for HBO and Paramount Television, which is being described as an origin story for his original novel which was adapted into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

The film deal was brokered by Amy Schiffman at Intellectual Property Group and Jason Hendler at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush & Kaller. Lehane is also represented by Ann Rittenberg at the Ann Rittenberg Agency for publishing as well as CAA for TV/screenwriting.